‘Modern Family’ Season 7, Episode 12 Recap: The Dunphy Family Tidies Up

Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) brings back old family character, Mrs. Clutterworth, to the Dunphy household. This consists of Claire dressing up as a maid with a British accent similar to Mary Poppins and forces her husband, Phil (Ty Burrell), and kids to get rid of unnecessary clutter.

Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) go to their father, Jay’s house, to toast to his first day of retirement. Jay (Ed O’Neill) is retiring and Claire is taking over their closet company.

“Congratulations on 42 years in the closet… business,” Mitchell jokes as they sip their mimosas.

Jay’s wife, Gloria (Sofia Vergara), admits she’s going to miss the closet jokes the most. When Jay gets up to say a few words, he says, “I would just like to say. I’m going golfing.”

Jay confides in Cam and tells him that he’s actually going to his first flying lesson instead of the golf course.

Gloria tells Cam and Mitch about a dream she had where Jay was falling from great heights. Cam gets nervous and isn’t sure whether her dreams tell the future. Cam runs into Jay’s flying lesson to tell him about Gloria’s dream and assumes that as long as he goes in the plane too it won’t go down.

Claire tries to get rid of all the clutter while Phil is finding reasons to keep things. He gets upset that she wants to throw away their children’s beloved stuffed chick, Chickie.

“But every year when the kids were little he was the star of Easter! I mean, besides Jesus,” Phil said.

Claire is about to drive away with all the clutter until Phil manages to have their son, Luke (Nolan Gould), sneak some stuff out of the trunk while he distracts her. As she starts to pull away, she sees it and gets out of the car.

She asks, “What does this cheap snow globe mean to you?” In which Phil replies, “We got that at a gas station in Florida. The snowman’s melted. It used to just be funny, but now it’s also a poignant statement on global warming.”

Once Claire drops her bags into the donation drop box, she hears Chickie’s signature sound saying, “Happy Easter.”

This is where it hits her and all the memories come flooding back. She tries to reach into the donation box and find him.

Phil shares that he has secretly been taking some of the victims of Claire’s stress cleaning all these years. He has an entire storage unit of old stuff from their kids’ childhood and shares it with the family.

Once Phil returns to the house with their prized possession, Chickie, the stuffed animal will not stop saying his commanding chirp of “Happy Easter.” Luke takes his childhood collected rock, Rocky, and plans to destroy it.

You can catch new episodes of Modern Family on Wednesdays at 9/8c on ABC.